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Mitigation Bypass and Bounty for Defense Terms

Updated on May 31, 2017

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Microsoft is pleased to announce the launch of the Microsoft Mitigation Bypass Bounty and Bounty for Defense Program beginning June 26, 2013. Through this program, individuals across the globe have the opportunity to submit a novel mitigation bypass against our latest Windows platform, and are also invited to submit a defense idea that would block an exploitation technique that currently bypasses the latest platform mitigations. Under this program, qualified mitigation bypass submissions are eligible for payment of up to $100,000 USD and qualified defensive techniques are eligible for a bounty of up to $100,000, for a total of up to $200,000 USD. All bounties will be paid out at Microsoft’s discretion.

If you are submitting a new mitigation bypass technique that you have found in an active attack, please note that that we have a similar but separate program for you, and the terms appearing here are aimed at individuals submitting their own idea for a new mitigation bypass technique.

If you are submitting your own idea, please read the full terms below and then send your entry for consideration to
secure@microsoft.com. If you are submitting a technique you found in use in an active attack, you must first pre-register with us by emailing us at
bounty@microsoft.com and
secure@microsoft.com for further details.

WHAT CONSTITUTES AN ELIGIBLE SUBMISSION FOR MITIGATION BYPASS?

Eligible bypass submissions will include a white paper or a brief document explaining the exploitation method and target one of the following scenarios:

A novel method of exploiting a real Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability. A real RCE vulnerability is understood to be an RCE that exists in a Microsoft application which may or may not have already been addressed through a security update.

A novel method of bypassing a mitigation imposed by a user mode sandbox. For example, this could include a technique that can bypass symbolic link restrictions imposed by a sandbox or other novel logic issues that enable an attacker to escape the sandbox and elevate privileges.

Eligible bypass submissions are permitted to make use of known methods of exploitation in their exploit and whitepaper, but a novel exploitation method must be an integral and required component of enabling reliable remote code execution. Submissions must clearly distinguish the novel aspects of the exploitation method being described.

It is recommended that submissions target 64-bit user mode applications or applications that run on 32-bit ARM processors.

Eligible bypass submissions must be able to exploit a user mode application that makes use of all the latest mitigations supported by the Windows platform. Refer to the section on MITIGATION BYPASS SCOPE for more information on what is considered in scope and out of scope for mitigation bypass submissions.

Eligible bypass submissions must demonstrate and describe an exploitation method that meets the following criteria:

Generic: RCE exploitation methods must be applicable to one or more common memory corruption vulnerability classes.

Reliable: it must have a low probability of failure.

Reasonable: it must have reasonable requirements and pre-requisites.

Impactful: it must be applicable to high risk application domains (browsers, document readers, etc).

Latest Version: it must be applicable to the latest version of our products on the date the entry is submitted.

Novel: it must be a novel and distinct method that is not known to Microsoft and has not been described in prior works.

All qualified submissions are eligible to receive up to $100,000 USD. Submissions with a proof of concept, functioning exploit, detailed write up and/or a whitepaper will be eligible for higher rewards.

WHAT CONSTITUTES AN ELIGIBLE BOUNTY FOR DEFENSE SUBMISSION?

Bounty for Defense submissions (“defense submissions”) provided to Microsoft must meet the following criteria to be eligible under this program:

Eligible defense submissions will include a technical whitepaper to describe the defense idea that could effectively block an exploitation technique that currently bypasses either the latest platform mitigations or a defensive submission that blocks exploits that is not in the latest platform.

Qualified defense submissions are eligible to receive bonus of up to $100,000 USD, depending on the quality and uniqueness of the defense idea.

We reserve the right to reject any submission that we determine, in our sole discretion, does not meet the above criteria.

The following tables provide a list of the user mode mitigations that are explicitly in scope and the definition of the techniques that are in scope and out of scope for each mitigation. Submissions that leverage other novel exploitation techniques that are not considered out of scope and are not listed below may still qualify for a bounty. An eligible bypass submission must work when all supported mitigations in the latest WIP fast build are enabled. This means a submission must assume that mitigations such as DEP, ASLR, CFG, CIG, ACG, and so on are all enabled by the target application even if they are not currently enabled by default in all scenarios at the time of submission.

This scope is subject to change at any time at Microsoft’s discretion.

Control-flow integrity mitigations

The following mitigations support Microsoft’s control-flow integrity protections.

Additional factors that are considered when assessing payouts include: how broadly applicable the bypass may be, the perceived level of difficultly and reliability in making use of the bypass, and the overall impact of the mitigation bypass.